People desire the ability to simultaneously listen to music. Unfortunately, existing technologies for doing so are limited. For example, one common method for multiple individuals at remote locations to simultaneously listen to music is to tune-in to the same radio broadcast station that broadcasts music on predetermined FM/AM/satellite channels. Unfortunately, radio station broadcasts are restricted to listening to the radio station's selection of music, which may not be desirable. Additionally, many people do not have immediate access to FM/AM/satellite radio station tuners/receivers, except when they are in their vehicles. Some individuals prefer listening to online music services, such as Pandora, that can be listened to on their mobile devices and that provide individualized music content that can be dynamically tailored to the individual's musical tastes. Some online music services can develop a personal radio station for each user that is particularly tailored, over time, to the individual's unique musical tastes, through the individual's feedback on streamed songs and other personal criteria.
In this era of social networking, an individual's real-world and social network “friends” or followers may desire the ability to listen to the individual's personal radio station, as a way of personally connecting with the individual. The individual's real-world and social network friends or followers may also desire the ability to simultaneously listen to whatever music content the individual may be currently listening to on his/her mobile music device. This may be achieved by, for example, receiving streamed music through an online music service or listening to music files stored on the individual's mobile music device. One can imagine that if the individual were a celebrity, or other personality with a large volume of followers, this ability to simultaneously share music content with the individual would be highly coveted. Unfortunately, existing technologies for doing so are lacking.
One popular device for listening to music is a cellular mobile device, or smartphone, which individuals usually carry with them on their person, or in very close proximity, at most times. Existing technologies for simultaneously sharing, in real-time, an audio signal on one personal cellular mobile device with multiple individuals include using the cellular mobile device's speaker to broadcast the audio signal to anyone within listening range. This method only works for simultaneously sharing audio content with individuals that are in close proximity to the cellular mobile device's speaker. Furthermore, the audio content is shared with anyone within listening distance, rather than to a selected group of individuals who desire the ability to listen to the audio content. Another method of simultaneously sharing audio content from one personal cellular mobile device with multiple individuals is plugging a headphone set into an audio output port on the cellular mobile device with multiple pairs of earbuds. This allows multiple listeners to listen to the same audio content, via the earbuds, without broadcasting the audio to unwanted listeners who may also be in the listening vicinity. Unfortunately, this method only allows sharing of audio content with listeners who are in close proximity to the cellular mobile device. In other words, it limits sharing of the audio content to a range associated with the length of the physical wire of the headphone set. Sharing music being played on the cellular mobile device simultaneously to remotely located listeners is not possible with such existing methods.
Another existing technology for sharing music content playing on a personal mobile device with multiple listeners is to pair multiple Bluetooth-enabled headsets with the mobile device and communicate the audio content to each of the headsets via a Bluetooth piconet. Unfortunately, this method is limited to short range wireless communications because Bluetooth communications are limited to a range on the order of meters or less. For example, Bluetooth typically operates within a range of less than ten meters. In addition, Bluetooth networks are limited to seven active devices. More particularly, current Bluetooth protocol allows only one audio receiver slave device, e.g. headset, to be paired to a master device, e.g. cellular mobile phone, at a time. Also, Bluetooth communications have a relatively small data transfer rate of up to approximately 3 Mbps, as compared with other wireless communication protocols, e.g., Wi-fi, which can have data transfer rates of 30 Mbps. Higher data transfer rates can amount to higher sound quality and sharing with more receiver devices.
Another popular method of simultaneously sharing music content is live musical concerts. One of the drawbacks of sharing a musical experience at a live musical concert is that concerts are limited to a predetermined venue and a very limited predetermined time period. Additionally, concert tickets can be relatively expensive and because concerts normally take place at a single venue location, it is not always possible for fans to attend the concert because it is being held too far away. Therefore, what is desired is a device, system, or method that allows audio content from a single music content source, e.g., a cellular mobile device or a speaker at a music concert, to be simultaneously, synchronously communicated, over long distances, to a multitude of remote audio receiver devices. Unfortunately, simultaneously sharing music over long distances presents many technical challenges including establishing high sound quality and secure long range communications, while also communicating data relatively quickly and compensating for propagation delay of the music content from the source transmitting device to the multitude of destination receiver devices.
Further, music content, e.g. a song, is often copyright protected. Therefore, permissions to share the music content should be carefully managed with any music sharing technology to ensure compliance with intellectual property rights.
Therefore, a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above.